It was getting quite late after a secret event I attended in the area (hint: the word “girt” was used in the event), so instead of our original plan of driving to a nearby suburb for familiar food, we decided to try something in the nearby-nearby Top Ryde Shopping Centre. Italian sounded appetising tonight and Bar Angolo Pizzeria is just on the nearby-nearby-nearby ground floor!
Bar Angolo has a decent-sized menu for the size of the place, with all sorts of antipasti, pasta, pizza, mains, gelato and other Italian desserts available. We casually noted how much the restaurant pride themselves on being authentic and “sorry no super supreme, meat lovers, pineapple or half & half pizza / please refrain from modifications“; for the authenticity and higher quality of food you trade for potentially slower service. That wouldn’t do as it was getting even later after the secret girt event, so I resisted the temptation of ordering authentic lasagne and settled on some authentic pizzas.
Pizza one was the Diavola ($22), with mozzarella, spicy salamino and basil on a tomato base. Pizza two was the Bar Angolo speciale ($23) also on a tomato base, with mozzarella, salame, ricotta, olives and mushrooms. Thankfully, authentic pizzas didn’t take too long to be done after the waiter with an authentic Italian accent took our order.
(I promise I’ll give this authentic thing a rest soon. wink )
The pizzas arrived in their 24-hour-risen, 31-cm, hand-stretched, hot-stoned dough glory. The crusts were satisfactory and a little thicker than I expected (not a complaint), and we excused the non-spicy spicy salamino as a lack of heat seems to be a common Italian cuisine feature. The biggest disappointment, though, was the tomato sauce base that we couldn’t quite taste, perhaps drowned out by the extreme saltiness of both pizzas.
I don’t know if I had developed higher expectations from reading about the food’s authenticity and higher quality advertised everywhere on the menu and walls, but the pizzas we had tonight weren’t very impressive. Sadly, I don’t see myself going out of my way to revisit the pizzeria for the pizzas. I wonder if the better choice would have been the lasagne. Authentic lasagne.
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